23-25th May 1998

Half the techie toys: Anne's Mac running Cubase VST and the effects/amp rack (top to bottom: Phil's dbx voice processor, Anne's Behringer dual compressor, the A-to-D rack for the Mac's soundcard and the power amp for the monitor speakers). 16 channels or more of direct-to-harddisk recording, but it isn't without its problems - Mike was up at 8am trying to sort things out most mornings while we were recording.

The other half of the techie toys! Mike's Mac (spending most of its time with the Cubase documentation CD in!), and our jolly nice Spirit Folio SX mixing desk. And an awful lot of electric string!! Not visible in this picture? Anne,behind the desk.

Phil doing his best Rick Wakeman impersonation! That's our old but much-loved Roland Alpha Juno 2 under his left hand, and his much newer and seriously flash Korg X5-D under his right. You can't quite see Lissa's laptop, which is managing the 7000 voices for the Korg.

I remember when you just turned keyboards on and played them! Anne remembers when you had a little man in to tune them.The rest of us aren't sure we do.

Lissa warming up to lay down yet another drum part, hiding behind one of the six mikes we festooned her kit with. We learned a lot about recording drums this weekend.

"Take fifty-two, daddy!"

Jared, our assistant sound tech, being shown by his father (Tim) how to look cool in a pair of headphones.

The far end of Mike and Anne's garage, in its by now usual guise as a recording studio. Did we mention one of our first jobs on Saturday was to cut a hole in the doorframe for cables?